Toy Fair 2009

February 15, 2009

Gift

Attendee badge

This year’s gift to attendees of the collector party was, as usual, one of a kind. To celebrate the 10th anniversary of the LEGO Star Wars line, LEGO prepared this special Vader-in-a-box. In early January, LEGO sent attendees a special badge to wear to the show. They were individually numbered and there were several different color patterns used. We were instructed that the badge would be part of a very special giveaway. I had originally thought there was going to be a raffle due to the numbering, but I was wrong. Everyone got the giveaway gift.

Chrome Vader-in-a-box

The giveaway came in a tall white box. Inside the box was this transparent container and inside that was a chrome Vader, like the one you can find (or not find) randomly inserted in any current 2009 LEGO SW set. Vader is affixed to a 6×6 transparent plate. His hands were upside down on my model, and I think that was intentional so that he can hold his saber vertically without the blade tapping against the wall, but I fixed it and just tilted his arm up higher.

Vader quotes

On the front and side of the box is “99” marking the first year of the license. On the opposite side of the box, the words “LEGO Collector Event” was printed vertically. Along the bottom, was printed, “celebrating 10 years of ruling the toy galaxy together”. The back of the container was my favorite part; it had a bunch of Darth Vader quotables printed in various sizes. The badge was supposed to be slipped through the top and serve as a backdrop for the Dark Lord, and that was my only complaint. While the badge integration was a neat feature, it completely covered the quotes. If they had printed the quotes backwards, they would have been at least readable if you turned the container around, but no such luck. Still, with or without the badge, the entire package design was really well done.